A couple of years ago I worked at Supermacs. To be honest I wasn’t the best at my job, though I’m fairly certain the reason for that was the working conditions. I am an alright cook, I can clean, and I understand the English language pretty well, it is my native language after all. After years of school, at that time a college student studying Game Design, I should have the basic skills to work in a fast food chain, I would think.
Yet, it is that job, that summer, that left me terrified to my core of getting a new job. In Supermacs I was blamed an awful lot. One manager always blamed me for money missing in the till, however, that only ever came up on her shifts, and not only did she blame me for that, but I would be blamed for her mistakes. Now, I know that may not seem like much, but after a while, it is a little grating.
The next thing that happened is that I was constantly told, again and again, that I had done something wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had, I was new, but the anger and irritation at my mistakes were unnecessary, and led me to ask them to make sure that I was doing the right thing, which led to more anger and irritation directed towards me. Every day going to that job I felt a sense of dread, but I was young, scared of my managers, and scared of resigning to failure at what seemed like it should have been a basic job. I didn’t know how to quit, I was scared to, and so I carried on.
I got the worst jobs, the grunt work, one day I had to clean the drain full of week-old food that smelled disgusting. It turned out it should have been done earlier in the week, I had shifts all that week and did not know that this was a thing I was supposed to do. I didn’t know it existed. So I spent two hours pulling disgusting gunk that smelled awful from a drain. I felt physically sick, but it was a common problem in this workplace. The managers expected me to know things I had not been told.
One incredibly irritating thing the managers expected of me were the vouchers. Supermacs’ cash register system was abysmal, the vouchers that would come in rarely matched the coupon codes I was supposed to select on the register. So when a customer would come in with a new voucher I often had trouble finding it, and again my managers would be incredibly irritated that I did not know this secret code they hadn’t told me about.
Then, one night when I was working, we got a call for something that wasn’t on the menu. I tried to tell the customer this, who began arguing with me, and eventually, I asked the manager if this was another thing they hadn’t told me. My manager was furious with me because this secret thing they hadn’t told me they did was something I should, of course, have known and done straight away. Yet I still stayed working there, because if I quit I was a failure.
It was the end of summer, I was about to go back to college, so I spoke to one of the managers. Sometimes we would be open until four in the morning, and I explained that should I have a class first thing in the morning I would not be able to work night shifts. She disagreed and refused to allow me to work hours that would suit college. She was pushing me to quit, it was obvious, and so I gave in. I haven’t been employed since, and that was three years ago.
I desperately need a job, I am studying and I get a grant, but it isn’t enough. Yet, every time I go to apply for a job, I feel an overwhelming sense of dread, which leads to a panic attack followed by depression. I had an interview yesterday, I’ve been trying to move forward, but the whole time the interviewer was talking that dread filled me, I didn’t want the job because I didn’t want to feel like that again. It strains relationships, I live in a very small bubble because I can’t afford to go out of it. I am stuck, terrified of never being employed again, and have come to believe that I may have Ergophobia.
The sad thing is, I didn’t fight for myself, I lost confidence, and now I feel hopeless. I would cry at work, I am not a crier, yet as I mopped the floors and fried burgers I could feel a lump in my throat, tears running down my cheeks. They never asked if I was okay, they saw but they ignored me. This is not how a workplace should be, it is not how a workplace should conduct itself. If someone you work with displays these symptoms, speak up, ask them if they are okay, and don’t be afraid to probe. You may well save them from years of unemployment and strained relationships with loved ones.
